Thursday, February 5, 2015

Birth rates, prosperity, and over population – Part 3

How large a human population can the earth sustain? Is population
growth essential for sustained economic prosperity? Last month, an Ethical
Musings' reader inquired whether the US has enough people to support healthcare
and other benefit programs for its aging population. Since then, I've given
those questions some thought. This is the second installment of my reflections
on those issues; the first installment is available here and some background material here.

Sixth, the real
issue is not whether the US can afford to provide the current level of benefits
to the elderly (this includes Medicare, Social Security, and other programs) as
the US population ages, but what type of economic system and what level of
consumption are sustainable, given earth's finite carrying capacity. In Ethical
Musings' posts such as Expand
Social Security? and The
U.S. Social Safety Net I've argued that fixing Social Security for the next
century is clearly affordable. Healthcare financing poses more of a problem,
but is also manageable. However, addressing those problems is to focus on
symptoms and not the underlying problems of ecological sustainability and inherently
flawed economic theories. That the symptoms of the problems in the US are
actually more easily fixed than in some other countries (e.g., Japan has a much
more severe population decline and both India and China have huge pent-up pressure
for higher levels of economic prosperity), may unfortunately make it easier for
the US to ignore the underlying problems, foreclosing possible longer-term
remedies.

Seventh, some
economists have actually begun to wonder in public whether we are reaching the
point in developed nations where full employment is possible, or even
desirable. (The term full employment
has never connoted 100% of those wanting work having a paid position because
some number, usually thought to be 3-5% of people who want to work, are at any
moment transitioning from one job to another. Without some level of
unemployment, full employment would trigger unstoppable, wage driven inflation
as employers competed with one another for employees.) Some economists are
beginning to ponder the limits of earth's carrying capacity, the limits to
consumer demand, and the consequences of automation on the demand for labor.
Household appliances now do chores in minutes that formerly required hours;
robots are replacing workers on assembly lines; etc. If these economists are
correct, and I think they are, then people must develop new economic systems to
generate and distribute income and wealth.

Eighth, generally,
a well-regulated capitalist system outperforms other economic systems because
capitalism encourages individual initiative and responsibility while avoiding
the impossibility of centrally allocating resources, production, etc. Of
course, some enterprises are natural monopolies (e.g., providing emergency
healthcare) or oligopolies (e.g., some utilities). Other enterprises function best
as communal enterprises, jointly owned and operated, but these tend to be
small-scale enterprises in which the owners know, respect, and trust one
another. Is yet another alternative economic system better suited to the future
than capitalism, communism, monopoly, or socialism? If so, what is that system?
If not, what form of capitalism will afford everyone an approximately equal
opportunity and incentive to work? Past efforts to limit the number of hours per
week that employees can work in order to create more jobs by spreading work equitably
among a larger number of people (e.g., in France) have not proven particularly
effective or productive. In the next fifty years, I wonder if developed nations
will reach a point where they can satisfy economic demand if only a third, or
perhaps only a quarter, of their working age population are employed forty or
more hours per week. How can we best regulate capitalism so as not to create one
class of winners (people who work) and another of losers (those unable to find
employment or those who work at menial, minimum wage jobs with no hope of ever joining
the winners)?

Ninth: God loves
all creation. Rethinking economics should also encourage us to choose an
economic system that promotes the well-being of earth and of all its
inhabitants. Plant and animal species are becoming extinct at unprecedented rates.
The interconnected of all life, if not a conviction that God cares for all of God's
creation, should motivate our ecological concern. Choosing to live better with
less consumption, treasuring relationships and the life of the mind more than
possessions, is consonant with abundant living as understood by both Jesus and
Aristotle.